


Restless

by loversandantiheroes



Series: Panacea [5]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Cullenlingus (Dragon Age), Cunnilingus, F/M, Fantasizing, Masturbation, Shameless Smut, no real plot but vaguely plot adjacent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-03
Updated: 2019-04-03
Packaged: 2020-01-01 08:36:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18332498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loversandantiheroes/pseuds/loversandantiheroes
Summary: Unable to sleep, the Commander takes matters into his own hands.  Quite literally.





	Restless

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written smut in three years or so. Be kind, I've done my best. Fantasy segments are in both italics and present tense because that's just usually how I do dream sequences anyway and hey, this is close enough. Written to go along with the ever-growing pile of things for Cullen and my Starkhaven Inquisitor, Aadhlei Lavellan.

His first night in a proper bed since Haven, and Cullen couldn’t sleep a wink.  

The Herald - _Inquisitor_ now, he reminded himself - had made the decision to join the Chargers in investigating Therinfal Redoubt.  The endeavor was Krem’s idea, and one Cullen supported. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was Cullen intended to join them as well.  A proposition that the Inquisitor had opposed with a surprising amount of vigor. Her vehemence over the whole thing had left him so startled he’d almost left it.  But stubbornness was not her trait alone, and he had caught her arm as they’d filed out of the war room.

He couldn’t quite call the resulting conversation an argument, though Maker knew it went round in circles for an impressive length of time.  But then her expression cracked, and through her resolve he saw a ghost of guilt, and the realization had landed heavily that she was trying to do him what she felt was a kindness.  She didn’t want him to see whatever was left there.

In the end he had stood there, still grasping her arm, and said simply, _I need to see it._

And so she had relented at last.  A relief and a burden all in one. They were to set out in the morning.  And that left Cullen to lay in his new bed, staring up at the stars through the hole in the ceiling, unable to do anything but think.  His mind tumbled restlessly from one thought to the next, following tangents and intrusions like a log floating down a choppy river.

_She doesn’t need to protect me.  I should be protecting her._

_Maker, we nearly lost her._

_I nearly…_

He turned over, pressing his face into the pillow with a groan.   _That is not a path to go charging down_ , he told himself for the thousandth time.  Rank and station.  Duty.  Even more so now.

But they had been lingering near one another more and more since they had settled in Skyhold.  He sought excuses to be near her when he could, had even offered to teach her to play chess. An offer she had accepted with something like delight.  He tried to think nothing of it, she was a gregarious woman, selfless and charming, and surely it meant nothing if her fingers brushed his when she passed him a cup of tea as they sat in the garden over the chessboard.

And she still insisted he call her Aadhlei.

He turned over again and again, kicking at the covers like an agitated bull.  He needed to _sleep_ , damn it all.  Even an hour or two.  Something.

Another problem presented itself as he rolled over onto his stomach with an irritated _whuff_.  A warmth that flared as he shifted, trying to find any comfortable position.  He shifted again, sighing as his smallclothes suddenly seemed to grow tighter.   _Restless head, restless cock,_ he thought and snorted into his pillow.  His hips, however, seemed to have a mind of their own now, and pressed into the bed again.  The sigh that escaped him was not entirely one of frustration.

Perhaps he could use the distraction.  If he was exceedingly lucky it might even help him sleep.

Cullen rolled once more onto his back.  He palmed himself through his smallclothes, one arm across his eyes, and gave a small, humming moan.  He hadn’t taken himself in hand in ages. Hadn’t even thought about it since...when, Kirkwall, still? It seemed likely.  And even those nights had been brief and entirely without relish. Release for the sake of release. A rush of pleasure to drive back the first of the lyrium headaches before they had departed for Haven.  Not that he had ever had the time, or indeed the privacy, to truly enjoy such a thing in the Circles. Finding one’s hand was a thing of necessity, done with the sort of quiet efficiency one could only expect from those trained by the Order.

Now, though, it appeared he had the time, and - hole in the ceiling notwithstanding - the privacy, too.  He pushed his smalls down past his hips, his cock heavy and half-hard against his stomach. He gave it a practiced squeeze, tight enough to make him hiss, and he let his mind wander again.  This time with a different intent.

Typically he found little release in fantasies.  At least in a fantasy of his own pleasure, of being desired.  Kinloch had stained the notion, soured it so that for years even a passing appreciative glance made his blood run cold.  The times he did seek any release found him thinking not of receiving pleasure, but giving it. That, blessedly, had been unmarred.  And so now by habit the few fantasies he did entertain often found him on his knees, eager mouth pressed between a lover’s legs. Usually a woman, but not always - his experience might’ve been limited, but it was at least varied.

A picture came to him as he began to pump his hand in earnest.  A woman spread out on the war table, linen skirt pulled up to her hips, bodice pulled down to her navel, baring full, heavy breasts to his eager mouth and hands.  And _Maker’s breath_ , was he ever eager.  The picture was so sweet Cullen bit his lip at the thought of it, of resting against the soft warmth of her and drawing a firm, peaked nipple into his mouth.  He conjured up imagined sounds, sighs and moans and soft pleas for something _more_ , and felt the first rush of precome coat the head of his cock as he let out his own stifled cry.

Too long since he’d last taken himself in hand.  Far too long. He closed his eyes, losing himself to the fantasy.

_She gasps as his tongue drags across the opening seam of her cunt, wet already and parting with ease.  There is no taste of honey-kissed strawberries as half the Orlesian quarterlies profess. She tastes of salt and skin and a deep, earthy musk.  Far more divine. He kisses her here as he would her mouth, open, humid, and slow, listening to her breathing quicken into gasps. The taste of her is glorious, but it is the sound he craves.  He chases out the touches that make her breath catch, the pressure that makes her thighs tense under his hands, and when the first breathy cry turns into a full-throated moan he cannot help but answer it._

Faster, a proper pace as his hips began to lift up off the bed towards his hand.  He was leaking steadily now, the head wet and glistening, enchanted by the familiar fantasy.  Allowed his own voice at last, Cullen found himself unable to keep silent. He sighed and moaned, muttering profanity and prayer alike as he worked himself closer and closer to his peak.  He closed his fist around the head of his cock, rolling his hand, and had to choke off a shout into a whimper. His legs jerked, knees lifting, rucking up the blankets. He fought to focus, breathing deeply, nose catching the lingering warm-sharp scent of liniment and felt his heartbeat stutter.

_The fingers in his hair spasm, tightening and pulling.  She’s writhing under him, so much he has to hold her open and still as he darts his tongue to and away from the place she wants him most.  She calls his name, keens it, stuttering out curses that trip over each other, the sound of Starkhaven thicker in her voice than it’s ever been.  He can smell her, the pungency of her arousal, but under it the scent of warm herbs that seems to cling to her hair. Roses no longer content to bloom in her cheeks; her whole body is rosy now, blushing down across her breasts, her thighs, and the bright flush of her sex that bucks against him in search of more…._

_“Fuck,”_ he groaned, body jerking.  Aadhlei Lavellan, The Herald of Andraste and leader of the Inquisition, spread wide and dancing under his tongue.  The Chant slipped from his lips on impulse, hand quickening instead of stilling.

“Oh Maker hear my cry,” he whispered feverishly between stutters and gasps, “guide me through the b-blackest nights.   Steel m-my heart - _uh_ \- my heart against the t-t-temptations of the wicked.  Make me t-to rest in the - oh sweet Maker - the warmest places, _yes oh fuck_ ….”

 _And here was warmth enough to rest in, grinding up against his mouth, pulsing as he pushed her towards her peak.  Andraste’s chosen, digging her heels into his back and begging him to make her come._ Oh Creator, see me kneel _: a prayer spoken into flesh._

Blasphemy, oh blessed Andraste, that was blasphemy, but the thought of her taste on his lips while he knelt before her seemed more like a sacrament, her breathless moans a benediction, and he was far past stopping now.

 _Her hands find his shoulders, pulling, growling,_ please for the love of Andraste get _in_ me, you bastard. _He all but climbs up her in his eagerness, kissing and biting his way to her mouth.  He stills only a moment to seat himself against her, bracing his elbows on the table and curling his fingers into her hair.  To kiss her and give her the taste of herself. To whisper the next into her mouth._

“For I walk only where You would bid me,” he hissed.  “Stand only in the places You have blessed. Oh - _oh.”_  Void take him, he was so _close_.

_He pushes into her, a slick, gripping heat that makes his toes curl and his back arch.  She gasps as if doused with icy water, stealing the breath from his mouth, legs wrapping around him.  Every part of her shakes as their hips meet. He has no hope of lasting, not like this, not with her shaking apart underneath him.  The pace he sets is urgent but not bruising and still she shakes and shakes, gulping in a breath at last to call out his name sharply before the rest is lost to a shout half swallowed by his mouth as she breaks._

Lost as he was, Cullen still had enough sense to kick the blankets down, gasping as a rush of cold air hit his body.  His heels dug into the bed involuntarily, pushing him up against the headboard, one hand yanking up his nightshirt and the other stroking his cock at a frenzied pace.  Every muscle in his body locked up as he came, lungs fighting to gasp in a breath and loose a roaring cry all at once. A small mercy that spared him alerting half the guards on the battlements.  His mouth hung open and silent, eyes clenched shut as he convulsed breathlessly, face turning an ever deeper shade of red as he spilled himself in thick ropes across his own chest.

The spasms finally subsided and Cullen gasped in a ragged breath, still shaking, hand still squeezing the last spare drops from his slowly softening cock.  

“Fuck,” he breathed.  And then closed his eyes as the pleasure faded and realization set in.  

_Fuck._

The cold hit him then, sending him into a fit of shivering, and he fumbled to clean himself up as quickly as he could.

 _I want her_ , he thought fuzzily as he settled back into bed again, drowsy in spite of the cold.   _I don’t even remember how to want anymore, but I want her._

The revelation settled in him with an alarming ease.  Which perhaps meant it was not so much of a revelation after all.

 _“Andraste preserve me,”_ he sighed into his pillow, and drifted off to sleep.


End file.
